Bot Detection Researcher/Engineer, Sardine
+ Equity
Fraud prevention & compliance infrastructure
Be an early applicant
Fraud prevention & compliance infrastructure
101-200 employees
Be an early applicant
+ Equity
101-200 employees
Company mission
To remove the friction and risks associated with high velocity money movement, from banks and cards through to digital wallets and crypto.
Role
Who you are
- This role is ideal for someone who enjoys understanding how real devices behave, how automation frameworks operate, and where the differences lie
- Solid understanding of web internals, including JavaScript behavior, browser APIs, rendering differences, and WebView variations (100)
- Practical knowledge of iOS internals—system APIs, sensors, entitlements, app lifecycle, and common jailbreak indicators
- Practical understanding of Android internals—system services, app architecture, rooting behavior, tampering techniques, and emulator characteristics
- Experience reverse engineering or dissecting behavior in at least one environment (JavaScript, Android APKs, or iOS runtime)
- Familiarity with automation and botting tools and how they attempt to mimic real users
- Ability to run independent research, test hypotheses, collect data, and clearly communicate results
- Strong written and verbal communication skills
Desirable
- Previous experience in bot detection, mobile security, fraud prevention, or device intelligence
- Hands-on experience with Frida, Objection, LLDB, rooting/jailbreaking analysis, or instrumentation frameworks
- Experience contributing to browser or mobile security projects
- Comfort working with backend systems (Golang preferred) to help validate detection logic
- Understanding of behavioral biometrics and how they complement device-level signals
What the job involves
- We are hiring a Bot Detection Researcher/Engineer to help us strengthen our detection capabilities across our Web, iOS, and Android SDKs
- You will research browser and mobile environments, explore evasion techniques, and uncover new ways to distinguish genuine users from automated or manipulated traffic
- Analyze how browsers and mobile operating systems expose signals that can be used to detect automation, spoofing, rooting/jailbreaking, and other forms of tampering
- Examine frameworks such as Playwright, Puppeteer, Selenium, Appium, and mobile instrumentation tools to identify weaknesses and detection opportunities
- Explore OS-level behaviors, sensor patterns, app lifecycle events, Web APIs, and device characteristics to find inconsistencies between real and synthetic environments
- Build small prototypes or custom test harnesses to validate detection ideas and collect data from different platforms and OS versions
- Work closely with Web, iOS, Android, and backend engineering teams to bring validated signals into our production SDKs
- Monitor emerging trends in bot development, mobile emulation, and evasion techniques, and keep our detection logic up to date
- Document your research clearly and present your findings to technical and non-technical audiences
- Tech Stack
- Web SDK: TypeScript
- IOS SDK: Swift
- Android SDK: Kotlin / Java
- Backend: Go (Preferred)
- Infrastructure: GCP / AWS
- Automation is no longer limited to browsers—mobile automation is becoming just as sophisticated. This role plays a key part in ensuring our Web, iOS, and Android SDKs stay ahead by identifying subtle, reliable signals that reflect how real devices behave
Our take
Identity and payment fraud is one of the biggest dangers facing online businesses. Sardine is setting out to solve this problem by building the first zero-day fraud prevention technology.
Sardine's technology traces intrinsic behaviour patterns to identify so-called "bad actors" online, and detects fraudsters using machine-learned fraud scores and user behavior biometrics.
The company calls itself the world's first FaaS (Fraud Detection as a Service), and its solutions are already drawing business from next-gen crypto and financial service institutions. Onboarding these institutions and scaling its customer base at pace will ensure that Sardine maintains its frontrunner position.
Freddie
Company Specialist at Welcome to the Jungle
Company
Funding (last 2 of 4 rounds)
Feb 2025
$70m
SERIES C
Sep 2022
$51.5m
SERIES B
Total funding: $145.6m
Company benefits
- Generous equity compensation
- Work from anywhere: Remote-first Culture
- Unlimited paid time off and minimum 2 weeks/year of mandatory vacation
- 100% of health insurance, dental, and vision coverage for employees and 50% for dependents
- 4% matching in 401k
- Company-wide offsites, the last one was at Miami
- MacBook Pro delivered to your door
- One-time stipend to set up a home office — desk, monitors, etc
- Monthly meal stipend
- Annual fitness allowance
- Unlimited access to an expert financial advisory
Company HQ
SoMa, San Francisco, CA
Leadership
Soups Ranjan
(Co-Founder & CEO)Previously worked as Director of Data Science & Risk at Coinbase, and was Head of Crypto at Revolut.
Zahid Shaikh
(Co-Founder & Head of Product)Previously worked as a Senior Product Manager at both PayPal and Uber, and was Senior Product Owner at Revolut.
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